Merry Christmas!

Christmas with kids is just wonderful.

Mason and Brielle have been so excited. Christmas questions began around Halloween and the build up has been great. We went to the English's and the Arbon's for Christmas Eve and it was good seeing everyone that night. In the morning the kids started waking up around 6:00 and by 6:30 everyone was awake and wondering where Santa was. There were no presents under the tree! Mason and Brielle both snuck out to check before coming in our room and then came in to tell us that he didn't come. Luckily, that sneaky guy did come, he just put everything downstairs this year.

Watching those happy faces and hearing "This is the best Christmas EVER!" a hundred times was the best.

Thanksgiving

This year Tim's family decided to go to his sister Steph's cabin for Thanksgiving, so we didn't get to see any of them over the holiday. It is always weird when we don't see one side of the family on a holiday.

So we had the day with the English's. Unfortunately, they decided to schedule around Brady's family's holiday, and our dinner didn't start until 4:30. That meant that Tim had time to seriously injure his foot with an exercise band (he went to the ER a couple of days later and the x-rays didn't show a break, but it has been a month and it still hurts). So he couldn't walk all evening. Which meant that I got to wrangle all four kids all evening during the hardest time of the day.

But other than that, it was really nice. And I got to meet Emily's sweet baby Ivy for the first time. She is so dainty and adorable. It made me happy to finally get to hold her. I think the kids had a good time and the food was delicious. I have a lot to be thankful for. I have everything to be thankful for.

Here are some photos from the the last part of November, including Thanksgiving.

A Wall

We have had the house up for sale, off and on, for the three years we have lived here. Every time someone goes through it it seems there is just one major hang-up. One thing they don't like and they either can't change it, or they don't want to do the work. I can't blame them, because as much as I love it here, I have those hang-ups too. Mine is the backyard. It isn't kid-friendly and most of it is useless.

For a lot of other people, it has been the lack of RV parking. There is also a great garage in the back, but no good way to get there. So this fall we decided to remedy our parking problem and get an RV pad. We have gotten a few quotes over the years and they have all been so ridiculously high that we didn't really consider it a possibility. But someone gave Tim a referral for a cement guy that was desperate for work and would give us a great deal.

Enter Michael L. Smith, and his pal Jimmy. He did give us a great quote. It was to pour footings, build a 10-foot tall retaining wall, back-fill, compact, and then do flat work on an RV pad, and a ramp and large sidewalk leading to the suspended garage.

Unfortunately, he didn't build a secure form for the wall and our cement blew it out. So then we got to pay extra to have Heath Mote come and reinforce the re-bar skirt and use metal frames to pour a new wall. Then Michael came back at Tim's insistence and did the gravel back-fill and almost all the of the flat work on Halloween. We still have to hire someone ELSE to come and finish the saw cut joint lines, because Michael is MIA. As flaky as Michael has been, Tim still likes the charismatic guy.

So, a few months later, a few thousand dollars extra later, and an unbelievable amount of stress and work (and head-into-cement-mixer-chute injuries) for Tim later, the RV pad is finally finished. Now we just have to build stairs on the Wheeler's property (to replace the ones we tore out because they were halfway on our property), raise the level of the grass at the bottom, and plaster the outside of the wall and then the whole project will actually be done. Hopefully the sprinklers still work in the spring - since day number one on the job, our main line got broken.

Don't worry, Tim got to tear down most of this wall himself.

And here is a nice 5.5 yards of concrete spilling onto the lawn.

Starting over.

Eric Bus Arbon

November 7, 2014 at 2:55 PM

Our precious little Eric arrived, safe and sound.

8 pounds 8 ounces, 21.5 inches long

It's Happy Halloween Time

The title of this post is a reference to a really amazing song that Mason made up on the fly to send in a video to his Uncle Ryan, who is still living in Texas and missing his nieces and nephews. "It's Happy Halloween time. Boo. Boo! Pumpkins all around!." Nothing better.

Mason had been planning all year on being Iron Man for Halloween again. Just a week or two before the big day we found a Wolverine costume at Target and he immediately changed his mind. Brielle also changed her mind and decided to get an Elsa costume, but the she opted to stick with the Rapunzel costume that she has been wearing every day for the last month or so. Ava didn't get to choose. They all looked perfectly adorable.

I spent the morning making Halloween cookies and doing other Halloween related things with the most well-behaved, excited beyond belief children. Then we went to Tim's parents house for Halloween bread bowls and went trick or treating in their neighborhood. Their cousin, Beau, joined us, and it was so much fun watching them RUN from house to house. They couldn't contain the happiness, it was just spilling out everywhere all day. It was probably one of the best days I've ever had. Tim and I just kept saying to each other, "Isn't this the best? This is the best."

Diseased

A few days after we got home from Bear Lake, our little nephew, Friedrich, got chicken pox from the vaccine he had a couple weeks before. It is very rare for this to happen, and we were feeling pretty bad for the little guy. While we were on our trip, Mason's throat glands were swollen like little golf balls, but he didn't complain about a sore throat and didn't have a fever, so we didn't worry too much. (I didn't worry too much, Tim thought he might suffocate in his sleep.) Then about a week after we got back, he broke out in a little rash, too.

I figured he caught chicken pox from Friedrich. Then Brielle spiked a fever. Then I started thinking it was very strange that three kids would get a disease that they had all been immunized against. So I googled! Possibly chicken pox - probably hand, foot and mouth disease. Turns out they are very similar and neither can really be treated, so no need to get a doctor involved.

When Ava caught it, I got a little concerned. She got sores all over her body, not just in her mouth and a couple on her hands like the other two kids. She was inconsolable one minute and happy to run and play the next, like kids often are when they're sick. She didn't want to walk much and was obviously itchy and uncomfortable. She kept pointing at her spots and saying, "bug!" Since our neighbor is our pediatric physicians assistant, I ran her down there and it turns out the internet knows a thing or two about diseases. Definitely hand, foot and mouth... and that's what Friedrich must have had, too.

Once Ava started to feel a little better, Tim got a terrible sore throat and a fever and was down for a couple of days. As soon as the sores in his throat healed, they turned up all over his hands and feet. The doctor told me that it is actually a lot more painful than itchy and evidently that was the truth. Tim was on the couch for three days and said it felt like someone just shaved all the skin off his hands and feet. He couldn't even lift the lid of the toilet without severe pain in his fingertips. Otherwise he felt fine, and I thought he was going to go crazy being out of commission for almost a week.

I also thought I was going to go crazy. It is one thing to have your husband home sick and be the caretaker - I've never minded it. It is a whole other thing to be completely home-bound because the kids are still contagious. I had two awesome friends (Karalee Kidd and Nicole Watkins) bring me treats out of pity, without even hearing me complain! It was so sweet that they realized that its kind of hard taking care of a whole house of sick people while you're pregnant.

Now that Tim's sores have healed the skin is all peeling off to reveal nice, pink, baby fresh skin underneath. Meaning, his hands and feet are sore and sensitive again. It has been terrible for him and for Ava. Not being able to do anything to make it better for them is the worst. And here are some wonderful pictures to walk you through the horror.